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Everything Blue is New Again

Your old jeans can keep houses warm

We know how much you hate to give them up, but from now through January 31, your old jeans can have a new life, keeping houses warm.

All this month, Fresh Produce in Pasadena is hosting â€œBring In Your Blues,â€ a campaign built to help collect denim for Cotton Incorporatedâ€™s Blue Jeans Go Greenâ„¢ denim recycling program.

This used to be jeans.

During this time, shoppers will be encouraged to bring in an old piece of denim to receive 15% off Fresh Produceâ€™s new KUT Jeans. The collected denim will be recycled into UltraTouchâ„¢ Denim Insulation, which is then distributed to help build homes for communities in need.

The Blue Jeans Go Greenâ„¢ program has provided UltraTouchâ„¢ Denim Insulation to numerous Habitat for Humanity affiliates across the country since 2007.

Hereâ€™s how your jeans become insulation: First, cotton seed is planted each year from early February to mid-May and the matured fluffy, white bolls are then harvested from September through December. Spinning mills purchase bales of cotton, then blend, clean and straighten cotton fibers into a continuous strand called sliver, which goes through additional processes prior to spinning.

The spinning process reduces the sliverâ€™s weight and inserts twist in order to produce a yarn, which is then packaged and ready for a weaving mill. Yarns are combined to form a continuous “rope,” and many ropes are fed into multiple indigo dyeing baths. Once dried, ropes are separated into individual yarns, wound onto sheet-like beams and mounted on a loom for weaving.

Large rolls of the finished denim fabric are shipped to garment manufacturers, and assorted denim garments are created for sale at retail.

The denim is then returned to its natural, original fiber state, cotton, preparing it for the insulation process. The reprocessed cotton fiber is treated with a borate solution for fire retardency and mold/mildew resistance.

Sheets of insulation are cut to size to produce Ultra Denim insulation, and prepared for packaging to be shipped and installed for use in residential homes and commercial buildings across the country.

UltraTouchâ„¢ Denim Insulation is composed of 80% recycled cotton fibers and is an environmentally safe, non-itch insulation that provides extraordinary thermal performance and acoustically provides 30% better sound absorption than traditional fiberglass insulation. In addition, it is one of the only insulating products that contains an active mold/mildew inhibitor.

All denim collected through the Blue Jeans Go Greenâ„¢ denim recycling program is recycled into UltraTouchâ„¢ Denim Insulation, and a portion of it, up to 250,000 square feet is distributed to Habitat for Humanity affiliates and civic buildings around the country.

Cotton Incorporated has also launched a Grant Program for architects, contractors, builders and project developers to apply for grants of UltraTouchâ„¢ Denim Insulation for community-based green buildings.

Your jeans have been such a good friend to you. Couldnâ€™t they be a friend to someone else now?